barathrum
by the alphabet soup
Summary: She was called Marina once. Like the sea which she sees only in nightmares where the water is scarlet blood and hands reach up from the depths to grip her ankles and pull her down. Now she's just another body without a name attached. Hunger Games AU.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Lorien Legacies.

**Title:** barathrum [come down; come down]

**Pairings:** Navrina, Sirina, Nine/Eight

**Summary: **

She was called Marina once. Like the sea which she sees only in nightmares where the water is scarlet blood and hands reach up from the depths to grip her ankles and pull her down.

Now she's just another body without a name attached.

Hunger Games AU.

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><p>The monotony<br>And the rising tide  
>Is under my skin, is crawling inside<br>Adrenaline to rewire my mind  
>I'm only human, I come with knives<p>

"I Come With Knives" - IAMX

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><p><strong>pro<strong>

* * *

><p>i.<p>

When Marina is twelve, she doesn't put her name in the Reaping ball more than once unlike what Adelina hopes and Ella fears she will do. Ella, only eight years old, is old enough to understand that the people projected onto the idealistic screens in the district square are not celebrities or heroes meant to be fawned over and worshipped until they are distinctly less than human. Adelina, at the prime age of thirty-five, understands both the horror of The Games and the need for food other than what's produced from trash bins, so her belief in self-preservation just slightly outweighs the possibility that her only niece will be forced into a dress of green painted gossamer with scarlet fingerprint stains.

Her family is not poor by the standards of District 11 or District 12, but compared to the other citizens of the cacophonous District 7 they are by no means a necessary statistic by the Capitol's standards. Everyday that Marina goes to school in clothes too big is just another drop of water to feed to the growing hatred she has for the Capitol. She's old enough to understand she should not voice it, but she's young enough to believe something can be done to change it.

When Marina is twelve, her hands shake as she stands near the end of a gradually thinning line of children facing two glass bowls. Her dress feels too fancy for the occasion, but her hands keep wiping grim and sweat into the fabric so its quality finally falls down a significant amount by the time she's facing the glass bowls. She extends her hand, drops the slip into the one on the right, and tries not to scamper away even though she feels too much like a child.

Marina thinks that if she's picked she'll tell Ella she can keep her mother's necklace for herself. Ella's a part of the family now, even if she wasn't born into it, so she deserves something of Marina's to remember her by.

.

ii.

When Marina is fourteen, Adelina falls sick. Suddenly all the tasks which Ella is too young or too small to do fall to Marina, and within weeks all she permits to memory are the chasms of the dust covered streets and the particular distinction spoiled food takes on. Ella helps her in any way she can: cleaning, making supper, sewing clothes together to make blankets. Her wide-eyed ten-year-old face ages more in months than Marina has in fourteen years, and Marina tells herself to find candies or books so Ella doesn't change into an adult overnight.

That year Marina puts her name in the Reaping ball twenty times.

.

iii.

Adelina dies in the night two months after the Reaping. Ella and Marina hold vigil for as long as they can before they shed their childhood skins.

.

iv.

When Marina is fifteen, her heart beats in time with another girl's who's just a few months older than her. Her lips map constellations that never last through the daytime on Marina's shoulders while her light eyes sparkle whenever their eyes meet. Her skin - dark brown, like the people of District 11 - contrasts with Marina's light brown tone but their bodies always move in time with each others as the sun falls and the world goes dark.

Marina thinks she loves her sometimes. She whispers it into the stagnant air when the girl is sleeping and she thinks it to herself when all she can feel is heat blooming all across her body. When she does say it, the girl kisses her and repeats the phrase with such earnest that Marina thinks what they have will last. She thinks a house similar to this one would be nice, and Ella could visit when she's able. Marina thinks they might work in the factories, but they might work instead among the trees.

Marina lets herself dream, just for a while, and she smiles as arms wrap around her waist with a promise they will never disappear.

.

v.

When Marina is fifteen, she watches as the girl puts her name in thirty-seven times. She herself puts her name in twenty-eight times and doesn't think about the way the carefully manicured fingers of the District 7 Escort will trace the edges of each slip before the unlucky candidate is found. Marina doesn't think about how her hands sweat with anticipation, with fear, or how her eyes threaten to fill with tears when she thinks of how terrified Ella would be with another member missing from their house. She thinks, if Adelina had been a woman who knew to fear the fate of her niece and adopted daughter, Adelina would have thoughts similar to the ones Marina dares not let escape her mind.

Marina's eyes meet light ones in the choking crowd, and both of them smile.

If she closes her eyes, Marina almost believes that the silence of the crowd is just the absence of wind on a bitter cold night while the warmth of bodies pressed against her is from Ella as she tries to burrow into Marina's skin. She could think the pit in her stomach is leftover from a particularly nasty nightmare, and that once she does fall to sleep she will wake up with hope ebbing from her limbs.

But the thing is she isn't safe in her bed and she isn't going to fall asleep from the reality anytime soon, so when Marina opens her eyes to the sound of the girl's name ringing out through the empty space of the air, her heart plummets to the ground.

Her eyes fill with the bitter warmth of tears, and her lips part to allow a soundless scream to escape while her fingers grip the fabric of her dress that's a few sizes too big. The girl stares at her so long that her name is repeated, and only when she walks up to the stand does she break away from Marina's gaze. Something breaks in Marina, then, and for a moment she swears it's her heart.

She doesn't think as she tries to break through the crowd, to reach the girl who's crying openly, whose eyes do not deserve the sadness that shatters her gentle demeanor. Peacekeepers grab her arms, her waist, pushing her back into the crowd Marina desperately wants to separate herself from. Tears stain crisscross patterns on her cheeks that almost mirror the ones which the girl's own tears make, and finally Marina falls to the ground in a heap.

No one helps her up.

.

vi.

The girl is killed in the Bloodbath. Marina's eyes never leave the screen even as the blood gushes from the girl's wound across her belly. She wonders if to die so quickly is a blessing amongst the horror of The Games. She wonders if she might want to die that way when she is picked.

.

vii.

Two days after the girl's death, Marina's dreams are plagued by scarlet waters from which hands spring up and claw at her bare feet, trying to bring her down into the depths of something she's too terrified to enter. Each time she wakes up, she notices scratches on her body caused by her own hands.

.

viii.

When Marina is seventeen, her name is picked. At sixty-five slips, Marina is hardly surprised and thinks only of Ella, whose eyes are as wide as the dirty plates in the rotting cupboard. Her sister does not stand out in the crowd of faceless bodies, but Marina still finds her with no problem by way of her screams that mirror the ones that almost flew from Marina's mouth the day the girl was picked. Marina's lips turn upward in a smile she tries to make comforting, but Marina has been given two years to learn that nothing can spare Ella of the pain she will inevitably feel.

She doesn't remember the boy's name, but she will in time as she is dragged into the District Hall where Ella will meet her for a final goodbye. She feels as if she is going to vomit but she has nothing left in her body but pitiful acceptance that even the ground will not approve of. She clutches the necklace around her neck, the one which belonged to her mother, and knows that she is going to give to Ella.

It'll be something to remember her by.

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><p><strong>post<strong>

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><p>i.<p>

The fabric of Marina's dress is made of green gossamer and stitched to give off the appearance of tree leaves illuminated by the summer sun. If Marina was not dressed like a pig to the slaughter she would think the creation to be just beyond gorgeous, but the fates have given her a different meaning in life.

The male tribute of District 7 is dressed in a suit which complements her dress, but again Marina does not allow herself to praise the creation fit for a god. She keeps her eyes steely, knowing that her facade will drop the moment she is alone. She is not perpetually strong, nor does she want to be, and she has made her peace with that a long time ago.

But it doesn't mean the people cannot think her to be.

The tributes from the other Districts are dressed in clothes which vary from color to levels of expertise. The tributes from District 12, as they always are, are dressed in mining suits while the two equally terrifying tributes from District 1 are dressed in purples like royalty. Marina knows, without a doubt, those two will be the last one standing within the Arena.

Only three other tributes catch her eyes; all of them are from different Districts. One, a girl, is from District 6. Her hair is cut short and sticks in unintentional spikes and her eyes are hazel. Her brown skin looks darker in the lighting and her eyes flash with a mixture of fire and lightning.

The second is a boy with pale skin, dark eyes, and equally dark hair. A smirk never fades from his lips as he stares at the Capitol crowd, his hand waving to the people who eat up his faux enthusiasm. His outfit poorly mimics a field of dying grain; Marina thinks the outfit is appropriate considering the situation.

The third and last is a brown skinned boy from District 8. His green eyes flash with humor as he smiles openly to the crowd which almost seems more enthralled with him than the boy from District 9.

.

ii.

The air reeks of sweat that clings to Marina's skin. Her fingers trace the hilt of the dagger gleaming with insufferable pride yet her mind remains petrified of the thought of killing someone. Killing something. The boy from District 8 watches her as the boy from District 9 and the girl from District 6 argue furiously, attracting a crowd that Marina neither cares about nor wants to be a part of. Thuds of fists hitting dummies fill the air as the voices of the two grows louder and louder until the distinct sound of arrows hitting targets fill the air.

"Hey." Marina's head turns to the boy from District 8 - his eyes seem too green for a citizen born outside of the Capitol - and his lips lift in a smile. "I'm Naveen." His black curls are long enough to be tied back, and his lips look strangely dry. Marina's acutely aware of the fact that this person is trying to win her trust so they can become allies, but all she can think about is his body resting lifeless beside her.

Marina is saved from having to respond when someone practically shouts with disgust: "Don't call me 'sweetheart', asshole!" followed by: "I'm _not_ a girl, you pig!" Marina whips her head around to the person and sees the tribute from District 6 scowling up at the boy from District 9 with eyes that give off the same intensity as lightning. Their posture never wavers away from the taller boy, and Marina is suddenly struck with the realization that there should be more than two glass balls each Reaping day.

"They're Six." Naveen murmurs; Marina almost jolts where she stands before she turns to look at him. "They prefer to be called that like I prefer Naveen."

"Are you-"

"No." Naveen pauses, thinks, then: "Yes, but no. I just go between boy and girl."

"Oh." Marina swallows and nods, trying to convey something without saying it. She deserves both of them an apology for assuming about them. Her eyes find Naveen's green ones, and she briefly entertains the thought that this is almost nice. The Arena is days away, Ella is weeks away, the girl is years away, but this almost feels as if she could reach them any time she wanted to. Then:

"Do you know how to use a dagger?" ze asks and Marina's gaze falls to the gleaming star-etched weapon. _No_, she thinks.

"Yes." The hilt weighs her hand down while the blade looks too sharp under her reluctantly terrified eyes. "Yes, I do."

.

iii.

Naveen's hands are not calloused, nor does Marina imagine zir hands see the grime which frequented hers too often when she still lived in the silence of hers and Ella's rotting house. Ze teaches her how to use the dagger to stab, to slice, to gouge. In turn, she teaches zem to stitch wounds. Marina is nothing like a doctor, but she knows enough from what Adelina taught her and what she had to learn herself when Ella would get injured.

Naveen's eyes never lose concentration as ze watches as she works, zir green eyes rarely blinking lest ze misses something of utmost importance. Marina thinks them to be tentative allies unlike what she had previously planned, but for now she thinks it will be fine.

When worst comes to worst, she will figure something out.

.

iv.

Six ranks the highest out of all of them, but they offer no snide remarks about the weaknesses of the others like Stanley chooses to. Marina doesn't bother to check her score - she knows it's near the bottom.

The Careers rank just below Six and Stanley, and four out of the six of them seethe with unfocused rage at the two tributes who scored higher than them. Marina recants her previous prediction and assumes that either Six or Stanley will win, but either way The Games will end in a bloodbath.

.

v.

Six is just the right amount of callous that the vibrant-feathered crowd has no choice but to cheer for them - claps and whistles alike erupt from the pampered limbs of the people. Naveen is the same with zir wide grins and winks fed to the begging mouths of the figures, and the boy from District 9 boasts about feats he may or may not have accomplished.

There is nothing beautiful about a girl who can speak fear and anger in the same breath. There is nothing beautiful about wide, broken eyes that threaten to spill over with tears Marina cannot decipher. She receives no cheers, only pitiful coos as if she were a dying bird who will not last another day. And she doubts she will.

But there is a surprising pity for the weak that plays in Marina's favor, and her fate is secured by the promise of numerous wealthy sponsors who cannot bear to see the weak one die first.

.

vi.

Marina does not sleep much the night before The Games. When she does, she dreams of a scarlet sea with hands dragging her down into the never ending depths. The dreams never stopped after the girl died, and there were times when Marina believed that the girl was the tormented soul who was dragging her down.

Now she knows better.

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><p><strong>per<strong>

* * *

><p>i.<p>

The Arena is forty percent water and sixty percent land.

(Marina didn't know her dreams were prophetic.)

.

ii

Eight tributes die in the Bloodbath. Three more are killed in the following twenty-four hours.

.

iii.

Six joins Marina's and Naveen's alliance out of convenience. Naveen is quick to agree with flitting gazes and colorful words while Marina doubts the loyalty Six gives out so rarely. Their eyes narrow and their lips purse ("The _Careers_ are more of a problem than I am.") before Marina finally agrees as her fingers trace the hilt of the knife she carries behind her back.

Every fiber of her being screams mistake. Six will kill her first, likely by slitting her throat in her sleep, then they will kill Naveen with one strike to the chest.

So on on the first night of the feeble alliance Marina does not sleep. Neither does Six. Marina tells Naveen to sleep, that ze need zir rest, but it's only a reason to make sure Six doesn't kill the both of them. The fingernail moon hangs above the three between the gap in the trees even Marina is unable to identify. Nothing fills the space between the tributes except for their inevitable clothed scarlet fates; in the silence Marina's thoughts wander even though she knows to do so is ten time worse in the Arena.

Her eyes fall to Six's eyes - hazel with flecks of green, they look almost sad - to their jawline, to the slopes of their brown shoulders, to the curve of their breasts. They catch Marina staring and offer a frown to replace the words which cannot be said.

Marina thinks of the girl from her District, the girl bathed in the scarlet of blood and the girl whose kisses never quite captured the magnitude of the constellations above their heads. Marina thinks if Six had been from her District their fates might have mingled before they were sentenced into a grave that wasn't even theirs to choose. If only Marina was still foolish.

.

iv.

Stanley joins them nearly seven hours later with bloodied clothes and a grin to match the fire in his dark eyes. Immediately after his arrival two cannons sound as he winks at Six. Neither Marina nor Naveen say anything. To express any horror they feel would be the ultimate act of hypocrisy in this place, and the last thing Marina needs is a conscience more guilty than what hers will be.

As quickly as he joins them, blood pounds in Marina's ears as her feet collide with the uneven jungle soil. Panting mutts follow her, follow all four of them, and suddenly all that exists between the terrain and the hybrid beasts of the Capitol is her. The tribute from District 7 whose last bit of home was torn apart in the Bloodbath by the boy from District 5. Her hand flies up to her neck to grasp the necklace that once belonged to her mother but her hand comes out empty.

In her daze the skin is torn from her fingers and splinters worm their way inside the wounds as she scales the tree more familiar to her than anyone else yet still foreign to her eyes. Tears spill out from her eyes as the mutts stop at the base of her tree, not quite feline yet not quite fox, and Marina is just thankful that they are unable to jump high enough to reach her temporary refuge.

Her ears pick up the sounds of the others following her actions but she does not dare to look at them. They are not friends, they are not enemies, but she cannot bear to see them dying. Not yet.

Paws claw at the bark, tearing pieces away in the desperation for human blood which they were created to desire. Enough blood peppers the ground to create what feels like an ocean before the mutts stop. Their eyes fold back and their heads move in unison towards the sound of booming voices. Then they are gone.

"You're from 7." Stanley watches her as she climbs down her own tree with caution the others lack. She debates asking why he cares, for she'll die nameless anyway, but her head betrays her with a slight nod. "You know this forest then."

"No." Marina's head tilts to the unnatural blue sky. If she concentrates she pretends she can see its inter workings. "These trees aren't the same."

"But you know how to get through a mass of trees. You aren't useless after all."

Marina stares at him, and her throat closes as her eyes widen before she remembers how to steel herself. "You're the one who joined this alliance willingly."

"Only because Six thought you were useful." His eyes flit towards Six then back to Marina, and he shrugs as if dismissing his own unpleasant thoughts. "So make yourself useful." He motions towards the seemingly endless expanse of jungle, raising his eyebrows pointedly until Marina starts navigating the jungle. Half of her fears the inevitable knife in her back; the other half fears the foreboding sword at her neck.

She supposes, then, that she became unofficial leader of the uneasy alliance.

.

v.

"What was your home like?"

Naveen's voice reminds Marina of the air whistling through the trees. She could listen to zem all day if she could, if she wanted to. The rational part of her reminds her that they are going to die soon. Within minutes. Within hours. Maybe even days if they're lucky. (But they both silently agree they ran out of luck when they were first born into this word.)

The part who's still young, still innocent enough to believe any friendships she forges will last, takes her lips and answers him. "My sister, aunt, and I were poor, so it wasn't the life we wanted." She pauses to let the stars obscured by the trees blink into her line of sight. "But I hope we made worth something."

"You did." Naveen murmurs. Zir hand stretches out over hers. Warmth seeps into her hand combating the chill of the night, and Marina almost lets a smile appear on her face. They are not friends, she, Naveen, Stanley, or Six - they are just pawns in a game - but Marina thinks that they might have been in a different life.

"What about you?" Marina asks zem. Her eyes fall to the beach peeking out from between the trees outside. The cave hides them from immediate detection yet soon they will have to move. The Careers are still out there, hunting off the weaker tributes, and then they will hunt only the four of them.

Or however many of them make it to the end.

"I have three younger sisters. My father worked in the textile factories most of the time so I had to watch over them and take them to school. My youngest sister, she's only five, would always beg me to tell her a story before she went to bed. I think she only asked me to because she's scared of being alone in the dark when she's awake." Naveen smiles to zemself. "I miss it."

Something lodges in her chest at those words, something small that needles through her core. "I miss my home, too."

Ze squeezes her hand then. Just once. But warmth still blooms in her chest.

.

vi.

"I think I would have liked to know you." Marina almost says to Naveen. She almost tells zem about Ella, about Adelina, about the garden in her bedroom window that consists of two potted rosemary plants.

She almost tells zem about the paintings she keeps under her bed and the drawings on her walls. She almost tells zem about the first and only time she, Adelina, and Ella had enough money to buy paper and materials to create paintbrushes. She almost tells them about the once permanent smile on Ella's face.

She almost tells zem that the green of zir eyes reminds her of the trees in the springtime.

.

vii.

The rain pounds relentlessly on the jungle floor and masks the sound of near silent footsteps as the owner creeps up on the group of four in the caves. The sole surviving tribute of District 5 does not yet know of the tributes who sleep in the caves. They know only that it will offer protection while they heal from the near fatal wound in their side caused by the boy from District 4. Even now more scarlet blood seeps into the fabric of their shirt than cleansing rain.

Their feet stumble as they walk, and a dagger rests in their right hand while their left clutches their knife wound. Their body sways left then right as they push into the cave thoughtlessly.

They forget this is place a graveyard.

Something moves in the dark - slowly, then the figure moves toward them - and a single knee-jerk reaction is all it takes for the dagger to find its target.

Blood seeps from the wound in the figure's chest. They stumble, falling onto the dirty cave floor. Someone yelps. Three people stand up. The tribute from District 5 panics, the bloodied dagger in their hand and their head throbbing from blood loss. Shapes distort in their vision as their eyes trace the cave walls, the figures approaching them, and they're too caught up in the inching gravity of their mistake to notice the sharp pain erupting in their back.

Thirty minutes pass before their cannon tears through the silence of the Arena.

.

viii.

Marina never thought before she put the knife through the tribute's back. She just did.

She doesn't want to think of what that means she's become.

.

ix.

Stanley's hand pushes a limb of the dead mutt into Marina's hands, and once the animal has been appropriately distributed he stalks off into the water. Six snorts, tearing off charred flesh from the bone with their teeth as they watch Stanley pace the shallow water. He's tall for his age, but Marina is taller. Six is the shortest out of them. Maybe even all of the tributes who are still alive.

"He's being foolish." Six mumbles through a mouth of meat. They wait a few minutes to finish eating before they continue. "The Careers are looking for us. If you're smart you'll leave by morning."

"You're the ones who searched me out in the first place." Marina points out.

Six shrugs and looks down at the sand to find the answers they want. "You've ceased to be useful."

"If that was true then you'd kill me."

"I would."

Six fidgets in their spot as Marina plops beside them. A breeze blows Marina's hair behind her and starts a chill in her bones. She doesn't know what to think of this tribute from District 6. She doesn't know what to think of Stanley, either. All she knows to think about is Naveen's lifeless body and the knife embedded in the District 5 tribute's back. She thinks of Ella, too, and what she might be doing in that too silent house.

She thinks of what it might be like to come back alive from this. She knows she will mourn for Naveen. She might mourn for Six, too, if her heart allows.

"He liked zem, didn't he." Marina's words tumble from her mouth.

"You'd have to ask him." Six doesn't say how foolish it is, or how there's no point in being attached to someone in this place. It almost makes Marina think.

.

x.

Naveen's hands pull Marina down into the scarlet sea now. Marina'll have to retract her previous statement.

.

xi.

She kills two more people. One from District 3 and the other from District 1.

.

xii.

She, Stanley, and Six are separated when the Careers find them. Marina and Six find each other soon after, but Stanley they never see again.

.

xiii.

Marina thinks about the girl whose belly was slit in the Bloodbath. She thinks about the girl whose kisses never did match the constellations and whose voice she can barely remember anymore. She thinks about what they might have been had this never happened.

Marina thinks about Naveen and zir emerald green eyes and zir smile equal parts brokenness and sincerity. She thinks about zir hand in hers, and she thinks she might have learned more about zem in time.

Marina thinks about Six, but with much less intent that about the girl or about Naveen. She think about their hazel eyes and the way they act stoic to forget whatever in their past is threatening to break them. She thinks she would like to know them in another life.

Marina thinks about Ella and about Adelina. She thinks about her mother and the siblings she might have known. She thinks about how Ella is waiting for her to come home so she can return Marina's mother's necklace to its rightful owner.

.

xix.

Marina thinks about the person she's become, and she decides she doesn't want Ella to know her like this.

.

xx.

The world catches up to her while she and Six are sleeping.

.

xxi.

(The Victor of the 54th Annual Hunger Games is - )

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><p>bar·a·thrum<p>

_noun_ \ˈbarəthrəm\

_plural_ **bara·thra**

**:** a bottomless pit or abyss **:** hell


End file.
